Truths To Be Revealed
by riana.zaza
Summary: Demigods have been sent to meet up with the Olympians to read about Percy Jackson. What will they find out about him? What has happened to Percy? And who is this girl who claims to be his sister? A/N This is after the Titan War. A Reading the books story with my own twist. Hiatus.
1. Books & Demigods

**Author's Note:**

**I have decided to put my own spin on this kind of stories. I have read a lot of them and I just love them. Do tell me what you guys think of this! :) Words in bold are the actual book, I don't own them.**

**Disclaimer: Percy Jackson and The Olympians belong to Rick Riordan, not me. Sadly. **

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**Chapter 1**

The twelve Olympian Gods were in the throne room. As per usual, arguments quickly broke out between them.

"Mother Rhea always liked you best!"

"The sea is better than the sky!"

"You need to eat more cereal!"

"Stop hitting on my hunters!"

Lady Hestia watched her family argue as she tended to the hearth with a sad smile. She was currently in the form of an eight-year-old girl. She was the strongest out of all of them and the eldest but she wished for nothing more than peace. Suddenly, a chill went through the room. Everyone stopped talking immediately. Five teens flashed into the throne room and fell to the ground.

"OW! You're stepping on my foot!" A male teen yelled. He looked to be about 14 years old with messy black hair and olive skin. He has dark eyes that pierces into your very soul and is wearing black-coloured clothing. "Well, you're elbowing my stomach!" A girl replied. She seemed only 15 years old with spiky black hair and electric blue eyes. She wore punk-styled clothes.

"Where are we?" A satyr groggily asked. It seems that he hit his head on the floor. Deciding to take pity on the young ones, Lady Hestia switched to her 25 year old form and asked the other girl with blond hair and grey eyes who have not yet spoken. "What are your names, dear?"

"Do you not know us?" She replied with a puzzled look.

"Should we?" Lady Hestia asked.

The other teens came to their senses and all quickly bowed to the Olympians.

"What is the meaning of this? Why are you here? Who are you?!" Zeus demanded.

The teens all exchanged glances with each other. "I am Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena." The blond one answered. Athena beamed at her.

"I am Grover Underwood, Lord of The Wild." The satyr said. Gasps were heard all around. One question was in every gods and goddesses minds. _What happened to Pan?_

"I am Nico Di'Angelo, son of Hades." The black-haired one said with a smirk. Hades smirked as well. Zeus got angry. "You sired a boy, Hades! You broke the oath!"

The girl in punk clothing scoffed. "As if you didn't, _Father. _I am Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus." "Seems like only you, Poseidon, has kept your promise." Zeus said. Said god of the sea now has an uneasy look on his face.

"Um, not exactly. I have a son named Percy Jackson. Looks like we all broke the oath." All three gods sighed. Everyone else rolled their eyes. Suddenly, a box appeared next to the teens. There was a delivery note along with a note plastered on the box.

_The Gods & Demigods_

_Mount Olympus_

_600__th__ Floor_

_Empire State Building_

_New York, NY_

Annabeth pick up the letter and read it aloud.

_Dear Gods & Demigods,_

_The future is in peril. Things have taken a turn for the worse after the war. The Saviour is in trouble. Both wars has taken an enormous toll on everybody. Even more so for our Saviour. Please, read the books and understand this: The past needs to be changed for the future to be saved. The world as we know it may be destroyed if nothing is done. Demigods, we have sent you back to the time before He was introduced. Read the books, they will help you understand better and save the world before it is too late. Each chapter will only be revealed after the previous chapter has been read. You are our only hope._

_From,_

_The Fates._

"Who is the Saviour?!" Apollo asked. Everyone else was equally confused but they couldn't deny that the person must have been someone very important.

"What war?!"

The demigods exchanged looks.

_Do you think it could be-?_

_It's a possibility Annabeth, but we won't know till we read, will we? He did save Olympus._

_Nico is right, but I don't think we should tell the Olympians of our suspicions yet._

Thalia opened up the box and pulled out the first book. "The title is **Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lightning Thief.**" Poseidon sat up straighter in his throne at the mention of his son's name. Hestia conjured up a couch for the demigods and they settled down.

"I will read first. **I Accidentally Vaporised My Pre-Algebra Teacher." **Grover said as he took the book from Thalia.

"Life is never boring around Percy, is it?" Nico asked with a rueful smile.

**Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.**

"No one wanted to be one either." Annabeth muttered.

**If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life. **

"That is actually not a bad advice from Kelp Head."

**Being a half-blood is dangerous. **

"Yep" Thalia confirmed.

**It's scary.**

"Very." Annabeth said.

**Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful nasty ways.**

"Definitely." Nico agreed. The Olympians were stunned. Was this how every demigod felt? They immediately felt guilty for the pain and suffering brought onto the demigods.

**If you're a normal kid, reading because you think its fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened. **

**But if you recognize yourself in these pages-if you feel something stirring inside-stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you. **

The teens had haunted looks on their faces that made the Olympians wondered what horrors the teens may have faced that were so terrible because they were not adults yet.

**Don't say I didn't warn you.**

**My name is Percy Jackson. **

**I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.**

**Am I a troubled kid? **

"YES!" The teens all yelled together.

**Yeah. You could say that. **

Thalia snorted. "See, even he agrees."

**I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan, twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff. **

"Sounds like fun!" Athena beamed.

**I know-it sounds like torture.**

Hermes and Apollo snickered and high-fived as Athena pouted.

**Most Yancy field trips were. But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hope.**

**Mr Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee.**

"That sounds a lot like Chiron. It's him, isn't it?" Apollo asked. Grover smiled mysteriously, "You'll see."

**You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armour and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.**

"Percy! Education is good for you!" Annabeth groaned, appalled at his behaviour. Thalia and Nico rolled their eyes.

**I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble. **

"Percy not in trouble? Impossible." Nico declared.

**Boy, was I wrong.**

"Told ya!"

**See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.**

Everyone chuckled at his bad luck.

**And before that, at my four-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. **

Most of the occupants of the throne room were laughing outright by now.

**And the time before that… Well, you get the idea. **

**This trip, I was determined to be good.**

**All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly red-headed kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend, Grover, in the back of the head with chunks or peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.**

"Grr…"

**Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must have been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grade with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a not excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs.**

"Great to know you think of me so highly." Grover said sarcastically.

**He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

"Grover…" The teens groaned. Said satyr had a sheepish smile on his face. "They were good enchiladas!"

**Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster has threatened me with death**

Poseidon's eyebrow was raised.

**-By-in-school-suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

"**I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.**

"DO IT!" Ares yelled, desperate for some action.

**Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."**

"In your hair?" Annabeth asked.

**He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.**

"**That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat. **

Ares pouted. "Buzzkill." He mumbled.

"**You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."**

**Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into. **

"Way to be optimistic, Percy." Hermes said.

**Mr Brunner led the museum tour.**

**He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery. **

**It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.**

**He gathered us around a four-metre-tall stone column with a bug sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a **_**stele**_**, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs Dodds, would give me the evil eye.**

**Mrs Dodds was this little maths teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker.**

Hades coughed as he heard the description and Nico's eyes widened though it went unnoticed by most, it didn't escaped Hestia's notice.

**She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last maths teacher had a nervous breakdown.**

**From her first day, Mrs Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn.**

"No, that's Nico." Thalia stated.

**She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month. **

**One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old maths workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs Dodds was human. He looked at me real serious and said, "You're absolutely right."**

Groans were heard all around the room again. "Way to blow your cover!" Annabeth yelled. Grover's ears turned pink.

**Mr Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art. Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the **_**stele**_**, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?" It came out louder that I meant it to.**

Everyone chuckled.

**The whole group laughed. Mr Brunner stopped his story."Mr Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir." Mr Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the **_**stele**_**. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"**

**I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"**

"Why is it always that one?" Hera asked. No one answered and Grover kept on reading. Hera huffed.

"**Yes," Mr Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. And he did this because…"**

"**Well…" I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and-"**

"GOD?!" Zeus thundered. "He will correct himself later on, don't worry." Grover said.

"**God?" Mr Brunner asked.**

**"Titan," I corrected myself.**

"See?"

**"And... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-" **

**"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me. **

"Eeew' is correct! It was disgusting living in his stomach!" Aphrodite screamed. The Olympians shuddered.

**"-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won." **

"He just summed up the biggest war in history into 'there was this big fight'?!" Annabeth asked. "It's Kelp Head, what did you expect?" Nico countered. Annabeth gave an agreeing nod. "I should be insulted by this…" Poseidon muttered.

**Some snickers from the group.**

**Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"**

**"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?" **

"Busted," Thalia said with a smug grin.

**"Busted," Grover muttered. **

"Oh no! Now I think like a goat!" The smug look vanished from Thalia's face. A "Hey!" was heard. Everyone else snickered.

**"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair. **

**At least Nancy got in trouble, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears. **

**I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."**

**"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?" **

"Happy note?"

**The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.**

**Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson." **

**I knew that was coming. **

**I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?" **

**Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go- intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything. **

**"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me. "About the Titans?"**

**"About real life. And how your studies apply to it." **

**"Oh." **

**"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson." I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard. I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armour and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman per-son who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. **

"Even I find that a bit too much." Annabeth said. The teens sympathised with Percy.

**But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C- in my life.**

"C- ?! How terrible" Athena sneered.

**No, he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly. **

**I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral. **

"Probably was."

**He told me to go outside and eat my lunch. The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue. Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city.**

"Someone's in a grumpy mood." Thalia said with a glare at her dad. "Wha- This hasn't happened yet!" Zeus defended himself.

**I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in. **

**Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing. **

Dirty looks were shot at the book. Hermes was thankful that the horrid girl was not one of his spawn. Artemis scoffed at the behaviour of the boys. _Hooligans_.

**Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school-the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere. "Detention?" Grover asked. **

**"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean-I'm not a genius." Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?" **

Everybody burst out laughing. Grover blushed.

**I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it. **

**I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home.**

"Momma's Boy!" Ares shouted. A shoe was thrown at his head, surprisingly from Aphrodite. "Don't be rude." She stated. Everyone was gaping. They had never seen this side of her before.

**She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me. **

"Awwww"

**Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table. **

**I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends-I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists-and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**

"What a jerk! I hate her already." Annabeth said. Thalia snorted. "I already hated her ever since her first introduction. Agreements were echoed in the room.

**"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.**

"Haven't the girl heard of a makeover?!" Aphrodite screeched.

**I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.**

"A wave, huh Seaweed Brain?" Annabeth smirked.

**I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy** **was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed** **me!"**

**Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.**

**Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see-"**

**"-the water-"**

**"-like it grabbed her-"**

"COOL!" Hermes and Apollo yelled.

**I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again. As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. **

**"Now, honey-"**

**"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."**

"NO! Don't guess the punishment! It's one of the rules!" Hermes yelled.

"You have rules?" Athena asked.

"Of course!" Hermes answered with a _duh_ expression on his face.

**That wasn't the right thing to say. **

**"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.**

**"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."**

**I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**

**She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled. **

**"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.**

**"But-"**

**"You-will-stay-here."**

**Grover looked at me desperately. **

**"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."**

**"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."**

**Nancy Bobofit smirked.**

**I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare. **

The teens shuddered. They had seen that stare before and it wasn't quite comforting. That stare was one of the mild ones, too.

**I then turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.**

**How'd she get there so fast? **

**I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

"I doubt it." Nico muttered.

**I wasn't so sure. I went after Mrs. Dodds. Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but was absorbed in his novel.**

**I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall. Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.**

**But apparently that wasn't the plan. **

"It never is." Grover murmured. The tension in the room was now so thick that even a knife couldn't cut it. Poseidon was getting alarmingly worried for his son. The other Olympians had grown to like Percy even though they had never met him, even Ares. He found Percy hilarious.

**I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.**

**Except for us, the gallery was empty.**

**Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling. Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it . . .**

**"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.**

**I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."**

"Percy's doing the safe thing!" Grover gasped, in an attempt to lighten up the tension.

**She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?" The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil. **

**She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.**

"Don't we all wish that?" Thalia said.

**I said, "I'll-I'll try harder, ma'am."**

**Thunder shook the building. "We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."**

**I didn't know what she was talking about. All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. **

"This guy is awesome!" Hermes yelled.

**Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book. **

Annabeth groaned.

**"Well?" she demanded. **

**"Ma'am, I don't . . ."**

**"Your time is up," she hissed, her eyes glowing like barbecue coals." Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons. **

"HADES! You sent a fury after my son! How dare you!" Poseidon yelled. He was furious. No one messes with his son. Apollo and Hermes had to restrain him from strangling Hades. "This happened in the future, brother! I have no idea what is going to happen and neither do you!" Hades yelled back. Just as Poseidon broke free of his both his nephew's grip, Hestia stood up.

"Enough brother. Let's get back to book. Do you not want to know what happens to your son Poseidon?" Hestia said in a quiet yet firm voice. Still glaring at Hades, Poseidon sat back down on his throne and Grover resumed reading the book.

**Then things got even stranger. Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.**

**"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air. **

**Mrs. Dodds lunged at me. With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword-Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

**Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes. My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword. **

**She snarled, "Die, honey!" **

**And she flew straight at me. Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword. **

"Of course swinging a sword for the first time is natural." Thalia said sarcastically.

**The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss! Mrs. Dodds was a sandcastle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

The demigods eyes are wide open. "You don't do that easily without training!" Nico yelled. "It's Percy, Nico." Thalia replied.

"True."

Poseidon let out a sigh of relief hearing that his son was okay.

**I was alone. There was a ballpoint pen in my hand. Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me. My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.**

"Magic mushrooms?" Nico raised and eyebrow.

**Had I imagined the whole thing? I went back outside. It had started to rain.**

**Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."**

"Who?" Thalia asked.

**I said, "Who?"**

"NO! Now I think like Seaweed Brain!" Thalia said horrified.

**"Our teacher. Duh!"**

**I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about. She just rolled her eyes and turned away. I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.**

**He said, "Who?"**

**But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**

"Okay, I've decided that you need a lesson on how to lie, Grover." Hermes said.

**"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious." Thunder boomed overhead.**

**I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved. I went over to him.**

**He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."**

**I handed it over. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.** **"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"**

**He stared at me blankly. "Who?"**

**"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."**

**He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**

"You see Grover! Now Chiron can lie!" Hermes said.

"That's the end of the chapter. So, who's reading next?" Grover stated.

"I will." Annabeth said as she took the book from Grover. "**Three Old Ladies Knit The Socks of Death."**

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	2. The Fates

**Author's Note:**

**Thank You all so much for reading my story. Special thanks to those who reviewed, favourited and followed. Love you guys! So, this is the next chapter. I will try to upload every 5 days, if I'm not busy, a week if I am, because school is starting in a few days. I didn't say it previously, but the demigods are from before Lost Hero, after Percy mysteriously vanished.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the words in bold nor do I own PJO. It all belongs to Rick Riordan.**

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"**Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death" **Annabeth read.

Just then there was another flash of light and five more teens along with a certain centaur appeared. "Looks like we have more people to join the party." Hermes said with a grin. "Well, go on, introduce yourselves."

Two boys with elvish features and mischievous smiles stepped up and said, "Travis and" "Connor Stolls" respectively. "Sons of Hermes."

A Hispanic boy with black hair and brown eyes said next, "Chris Rodriguez, Son of Hermes" Hermes grinned at his sons.

A girl spoke next, "Katie Gardner, daughter of Demeter." Demeter sent a smile her way. "Also Travis's girlfriend" Connor said with a smirk. Katie and Travis blushed.

"I am Clarisse La Rue, daughter of Ares." A tall girl with long, stringy light brown hair and strong looking stepped out.

"We received a letter that said something about Percy?" Katie asked directing a questioning look to Annabeth. "Yeah, we're in the past. To read about Percy's life." She replied and recapped what had happened previously.

"Sweet! He seriously blew up a school bus?" Connor asked. Travis snorted. "With Percy's bad luck, it is totally possible." Mutters of agreement were heard. Athena motioned for Annabeth to continue on reading after they all settled down.

"**I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr - a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip - had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.**

**Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho."**

"I thought Kelp Head was already psycho." Thalia smirked.

"**It got so I almost believed them – Mrs Dodds had never existed."**

"Bet you ten drachmas it was Grover" Conner said to Nico.

"Please, I'm not that stupid to take up that bet." He replied.

"**Almost.**

**But Grover couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying."**

Grover blushed.

"**Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum."**

"You don't say." Travis said drily.

"**I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in cold sweat."**

Pitying looks were directed at the book.

"**The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year."**

Questioning and appalled looks were sent to Zeus and Poseidon. They merely shrugged. This happened in the future, who knows what happened. Hades was groaning internally as the amount of work in the future increased.

"**I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs."**

"Seaweed Brain…" Annabeth trailed off.

"**I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class. **

**Finally, when our English teacher, Mr Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study to for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good."**

Annabeth giggled. "What did it mean?" Thalia asked.

"Old drunk" Annabeth answered.

"Oh, so like Dionysus" Poseidon said with a smirk at said god. Dionysus scowled while the rest laughed.

"**The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy. Fine, I told myself. Just fine.**

**I was homesick. I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.**

Growls were heard from Grover.

"I thought Paul was an easy going guy?" Katie asked, confused. "This was before him, his first stepfather." Grover snarled. Everyone else was confused. The teens had never known there was another person before Paul Blofis. Poseidon was worried for his son. How bad was this mortal to gain such a reaction from the normally peaceful satyr?

**And yet… there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I'd worried how he'd survive next year without me."**

A number of people smiled at this. "Perce…" Grover smiled.

"He cares for you a lot." Hestia said softly.

"**I'd miss Latin class, too – Mr Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.**

**As exam week got closer, Latin was the only class I studied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him."**

"Good, it'll help you." Hades muttered.

"**The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the **_**Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology **_**across my dorm room."**

Athena gasped in outrage.

"**Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon,"**

"Well, he certainly knows it now." Grover said unaware that everyone heard him. Poseidon turned pale.

"**or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.**

**I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt. **

**I remembered Mr Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. **_**I will only accept the best from you, Percy Jackson. **_**I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.**

**I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat 'F' I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried."**

A lot of people smiled at this.

"**I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor. **

**I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said, "…worried about Percy, sir."**

**I froze.**

**I'm not usually an eavesdropper,"**

"Yeah right," The Stolls snorted along with Thalia and Nico.

"**but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult."**

"That's actually a valid reason" Nico mused.

"**I inched closer.**

"…**alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too –"**

"**We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."**

"We would all be in our eighties if we waited for him to mature" Travis groaned.

Katie smacked him upside the head. "Be nice."

"**But he may not have time. The summer solstice deadline –"**

"**Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."**

"**Sir, he saw her…" **

"**His imagination," Mr Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."**

"**Sir, I… I can fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."**

"GROVER!" Annabeth and Thalia yelled. "You didn't fail! Stop beating yourself up about it already!"

"Percy helped me come to terms with it. I'm okay now." Grover said, sending reassuring smiles to his friends.

"**You haven't failed, Grover," Mr Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next autumn –"**

**The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.**

"No! Don't give up your position!" The Stolls and Hermes yelled together.

"**Mr Brunner went silent.**

**My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall. A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.**

**I opened the nearest door and slipped inside."**

"Yes, get rid of all evidence." Hermes said approvingly.

"**A few seconds later I heard a slow **_**clop-clop-clop**_**, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on. A bead of sweat trickled down my neck."**

"Why were you in your full form? Someone could see you." Artemis asked.

"I was hoping the Mist would cover it up." Chiron replied.

"Still, some mortals are clear-sighted. You should be more careful next time." Athena said.

**Somewhere in the hallway, Mr Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."**

"**Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn…"**

"**Go back to the dorm," Mr Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."**

"**Don't remind me."**

"It must suck a lot to be repeating sixth grade over and over again." Nico said.

"Yeah, it did."

"**The lights went out in Mr Brunner's office. I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever. Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm. Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.**

"**Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"**

**I didn't answer.**

"**You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"**

"**Just… tired."**

**I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed."**

"It didn't work, but I thought he was nervous because of exams." Grover said.

**I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing. But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger."**

"No shit, Sherlock." Thalia said.

"**The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam,"**

"THREE-HOUR?!" The demigods yelled. Travis fainted from shock. "That is plain torture, right there!" Nico yelped.

"**my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr Brunner called me back inside. For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem. **

"**Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's… it's for the best."**

"Chiron…" Annabeth groaned. "He's going to take that wrongly."

**His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips. **

**I mumbled, "Okay, sir."**

"**I mean…" Mr Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."**

Cue groanings.

**My eyes stung. Here was my favourite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.**

"Put him down for some lessons on tact boys." Hermes ordered his sons.

"Already on it, dad." They replied as Connor wrote down Chiron's name for Friday afternoon at three. Chiron, meanwhile, blushed at his lack of tact.

"**Right," I said, trembling. **

"**No, no," Mr Brunner said. "Oh confound it all. What I'm trying to say… you're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be –"**

"**Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me."**

"**Percy –"**

**But I was already gone. **

Cue shaking heads.

**On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase. The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was nobody, from a family of nobodies. **

"Nobodies, huh, Kelp Head?" Thalia said amused.

"We take offense at that!" The Olympians said at the same time.

**They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city. What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazines and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the autumn.**

"**Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."**

**They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed. **

"Jerks."

**The only person I dreaded saying goodbye to was Grover but, as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan o the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.**

"Coincidence much? I think not." Nico muttered.

**During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.**

**Finally I couldn't take it anymore.**

**I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"**

"That should give him a heart attack." Travis said.

"I nearly had a heart attack, you know!" Grover grumbled.

**Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha-what do you mean?"**

**I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr Brunner the night before the exam.**

"No! Don't confess! Rule #15!"

**Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"**

"**Oh… not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"**

**He winced. "Look Percy… I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers…"**

"**Grover –"**

"**And I was telling Mr Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and…"**

"**Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."**

**His ears turned pink.**

As he was doing right now.

**From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer."**

**The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:**

**Grover Underwood**

**Keeper**

**Half-Blood Hill**

**Long Island, New York**

**(800) 0009-0009**

"**What's Half–"**

"**Don't say it aloud!" He yelped. "That's my, um… summer address." **

**My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.**

"**Okay," I said glumly. "So, like if I want to come visit your mansion."**

**He nodded. "Or… or if you need me."**

"**Why would I need you?" It came out harsher than I meant to.**

**Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I-I kind of have to protect you."**

**I stared at him.**

**All year long, I'd gotten into fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying he'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended me.**

"He truly cared about me." Grover smiled.

"Of course he does, you guys are best friends!" Annabeth exclaimed.

"**Grover," I said, "what exactly are you protecting me from?"**

**There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.**

**After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed out side with everybody else. **

**We were on a stretch of country road – no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.**

At this point, Grover turned pale, which didn't went unnoticed by the rest.

"Grover, what's wrong?" Nico asked.

"You'll see," he squeaked.

**The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.**

**I mean theses socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric–blue yarn.**

**All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit lather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.**

Gasps were heard around the room. Poseidon was becoming really worried. He had turned pale and was gripping his trident tightly.

**The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.**

**I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.**

"**Grover?" I said. "Hey, man –"**

"**Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"**

"**Yeah. Weird huh? You think those socks would fit me?"**

"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all." Travis and Connor muttered.

"**Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."**

No one laughed at the similarity as everyone had realised one thing: Percy had seen The Fates.

**The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors – gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.**

"**We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."**

"Yes, please go." Poseidon said.

"**What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."**

"Just go!" Everyone yelled.

"**Come on!" He pried the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.**

**Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic.**

Heads were hung. Tears formed in Annabeth's eyes. Nico was whimpering while Thalia comforted him but she looked on the verge of crying herself. Poseidon turned into a huge puddle. At the questioning looks towards Poseidon, Zeus said, "He only gets like this when he is extremely worried."

**Her two friends balled up the electric blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for- Sasquatch or Godzilla.**

**At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.**

**The passengers cheered.**

"**Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"**

**Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.**

**Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.**

"**Grover?"**

"**Yeah?"**

"**What are you not telling me?"**

"A lot."

**He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"**

"**You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like … Mrs Dodds, are they?**

**His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw."**

"**The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."**

**He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost –older.**

"He is very observant." Hestia said softly.

**He said, "You saw her snip the cord."**

"**Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.**

"**This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."**

"**What last time?"**

"**Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."**

"Grover, you were scaring him." Thalia whispered to Grover.

"**Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"**

"**Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."**

**This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.**

"**Is this like superstition or something?" I asked.**

**No answer.**

"**Grover – that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"**

"Very insightful, isn't he?" Hades muttered. He may not like his brother's child but that does not mean he would wish something like this on him.

**He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.**

"That's the end of the chapter." Annabeth said quietly.

"You children must go to bed now, it is getting late. I will show you to your bedrooms." Hestia said. "We will all meet back here at 8 am."

Everyone scattered to do their own thing but The Fates were on everyone's mind.

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